Slipping in a pretrib rapture on a thread that is about the antichrist taking his seat in the temple of God?
No apologist for the RCC, but we can’t lay this one on them. When they put “revolt” in the Rheims, it wasn’t an innovation. No commentary on this verse by anybody in church history, prior to the Rheims, understood “apostasia” to mean anything else.
Take Justin Martyr for example, he called the man of sin in verse 4, who would sit in the temple of God shewing himself God, “the man of apostasy.” Similarly, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, Lactantius, Victorinus. They knew the Greek well! Yet not a one of these noted scholars interpreted “apostasia” to mean a pretrib “departure.”
You don’t even have to be a scholar to see what the word meant. The context literally bristles with proof of what Paul intended “apostasia” to mean. The man of the “apostasia” would oppose all that is called God - sounds like a revolt, or rebellion, against God to me. “That wicked” in verse 8, a man of “strong delusion” in verse 11, deceiving the world that they should believe “the” lie, he being that lie.
Enter MHGinTN, some 2,000 years later, to correct Paul, Justin Martyr, etc. “No, no, no, you are all wrong,” he tells us, we are supposed to understand “apostasia” to mean a pretrib rapture.
Incredible, I tell ‘ya, what hoops pretribs will jump through to push their pretrib rapture.
You asserted, “No commentary on this verse by anybody in church history, prior to the Rheims, understood “apostasia” to mean anything else.” But the previous Bibles ALL translated apostasia as THE Departure. IF you read the passages prior to and the passages following verse 3, you will see the meaning of the apostasia Paul wrote of. Do I really need to post those following passages to align your vision?
2Thess2: 1-8 Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be quickly shaken in your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as from us, saying that the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the departure comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction, he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God. 5 Don't you remember that, when I was still with you, I told you these things? Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way. Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the manifestation of his coming; [WEB]
There is a comma placed (yes, I know when the punctuations were added) between the clauses, telling readers these are two connected but distinct clauses for the same broader issue. The clause citing 'The Departure' is superior to the 'man of sin revealed'. we may make this discernment because Paul connects the removal of the restrainer to the revealing of the man of sin in the following verses. The Restrainer indwells The Church in ths Age, and when Christ gathers the wedding party the indwelling Spirit will be moved out of the way of the man of sin. The Holy Spirit indwelling believers will be ended, though His Spirit will still be around harvesting souls during the Tribulation to follow the snatching away of the Bride indwelt by His Spirit.
Scoff all you like. I have a few provisions you will be welcome to scavenge following the departure with My Lord's Bridal party. You will find them handy in the hellish environment His Bride will be taken away from.
Oh really?
646 apostasía (from 868 /aphístēmi, "leave, depart," which is derived from 575 /apó, "away from" and 2476 /histémi, "stand") – properly, departure (implying desertion); apostasy – literally, "a leaving, from a previous standing."[http://biblehub.com/greek/646.htm}
You post verse 4 as if it's tied to "apostasia". Verse 3 says this.
2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,
That and in there shows it to be 2 separate and distinct happenings. Trying to tie the word "apostasia" to the man of lawlessness is totally wrong.
>>You don’t even have to be a scholar to see what the word meant.<<
Are you claiming to be a better Greek scholar than Strong as I showed above?
Also, please show where the term “the man of apostasy” is written in scripture.